The Ego and the Flesh - 9780804759892

Is our ego but an illusion, a mere appearance produced by a reality that is foreign to us? Is it the main source of violence and injustice? This book questions these prejudices, which today dominate philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the human sciences. Arguing that we must distinguish the true ego from that alienated and narcissistic construct, Rogozinski calls for an end to egicide, or the destruction of the ego. His Ego and the Flesh begins with a critique of the two masters of egicide, Heidegger and Lacan, but its main purpose is to proffer an entirely new theory of the self, that of egoanalysis. Egoanalysis is elaborated through a rereading of Descartes, who was the first to discover the absolute truth of "I am." In the final part of the book, we approach that stranger the ego. We discover a precarious and divided ego-flesh striving to attain unity and to give itself a body but constantly haunted by a remainder. The role played by the remainder sheds light on various enigmas: the encounter with the other, the passage from hate to love, the death and the resurrection of the I. for egoanalysis is no mere theory: it opens the way to our deliverance.

"Perhaps the major presumption of 20th-century thought was that the subject, particularly the Cartesian ego, had to be subjected to `egicide.' It is this ego that Rogozinski defends in this fascinating book."---Simon Critchley, New School for Social Research

"Against the grain of contemporary deconstructions of the subject, Rogozinski argues brilliantly for a return to "the truth of the ego." His original egoanalysis reveals an intermittent, incarnate, and chiasmatic ego and raises anew the question to which philosophy must always return: `Who am I?'"---Francois Raffoul, Louisiana State University